"THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS " 1966 FRENCH FILM STILL RELEVANT & POWERFUL

BELOW: PHOTO OF CONFRONTATION BETWEEN FRENCH TROOPS& ALGIERIAN " INSURGENTS"

PHOTO SHOT FROM THE FRENCH FILM "BATTLE OF ALGIERS"FRENCH POLICE OFFICER KILLED BY " INSURGENTS" AS VIOLENCE IN THE FILM ESCALATES ON BOTH SIDES.

The film plays more as a documentary than as a fictional portrayal of historical events. Both sides are depicted as committing acts of terror . French "death squads" murder & torture Arab Insurgents & attack Arab community indescriminately causing violence & hatred of the French occupying forces. The French, in fact, seem to forget they are foreign occupiers of an Arab/Muslim country. By committing trrorist acts on Arabs the French are exposed as " racists " & as acting in a barbaric fashion .

The experience of the French in Algiers can be compared to the American Occupation of the Sovereign nation of Iraq. The Americans also use questionable tactics in fighting the People of Iraq who resent being occupied & treated as second-class citizens in their own country. The dictator Saddam has been replaced by a repressive police-state run by the Americans.

In the course of the film we watch as a common thief slowly becomes politicized & becomes a leader of the resistance of the FLN ( The National Liberation Front)

We also watch as frustrated police officers begin to take matters into their own hands & secretely plant bombs in the Arab neighborhoods til the violence escalates & the French government sends in a battalion of Special Forces which appeases the French residents while infuriating the Arab citizens. We also get to witness several unsettling scenes of French soldiers torturing captured Arabs who may or may not be armed insurgents.On the other hand we see the horrible carnage caused when Algierean insurgents plant & explode bombs in Cafes & clubs.

In the end the French in 1964 are forced to give over control of Algiers to the Arabs. But only after ten years of intense violence & the deaths of a million or so people.

See for instance :review & outline of Algierean struggle for independence-Issue 202 of SOCIALIST REVIEW Published November 1996

The big picture

"Battle of Algiers" By Gillo Pontecorvo

'The Battle of Algiers was released in 1964, two years after the Algerian people won their war for independence from France. It was one of the most hard fought national liberation struggles, with 1 million Algerians killed out of a population of 9 million. Gillo Pontecorvo reconstructs the main political events in Algiers between 1954 and 1957.

It is a powerful film. The French government banned it until 1971. It was also shown by other national liberation movements ­ the Viet Minh in Vietnam, the IRA in Ireland and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Cinematically it has influenced generations of film producers, from Costa Gavras's Z and Missing to Oliver Stone's Platoon and Salvador.

The film follows the life of Ali La Pointe from street hustler and petty crook to a commander of the FLN (National Liberation Front) bombers in Algiers. The film is shot in black and white and, without one foot of newsreel, creates the illusion of on the spot reporting. Pontecorvo uses mainly amateur actors. The film shows the brutality of the French, with harrowing scenes of the execution of two FLN activists, the Pieds Noirs' (European settlers) bombing of the Casbah and the torture of FLN suspects. It explains why individuals commit acts of terrorism and how the FLN became a mass organisation.

The war for independence raged all over Algeria but the film concentrates on the city of Algiers. The Muslim quarter known as the Casbah was home to over 100,000 Muslims despite being only 1 square kilometre. The FLN turned it into a `no go area' for the French. Many of its buildings were hiding places and bomb factories, from which was launched the bombing campaign of the French zone.

Although Pontecorvo leaves the audience with no doubt that he supports the FLN, he is not uncritical of the tactics used. In some of the film's most powerful scenes, he shows the results in slow motion of bombs going off both in the Casbah and in a Pieds Noirs cafe, milk bar and air terminal. As the camera pans across the carnage all you hear is a haunting, sorrowful piece of music by Bach accompanying the look of anguish in all the victims' faces. "